Living Proof

Your mind can be your worst enemy, if you let it. I'm big on telling other people, "Stop with the what ifs," and then days later, mutter out, "But what if this doesn't work out?" I realized that it's coming from a place of fear and anxiety, and usually, if I'm in a good mindset, I can push away from that. If I am not spiritually in tune, then everything goes haywire. Before my mom passed away, my mind used to constantly ask, "What if she dies from this cancer? What if she doesn't make it?" I couldn't imagine my life without her -- my best friend, the only person I told my deepest soul wounds to. We had a connection like no other, and I doubt I will ever find that kind of connection ever again. And that's OK. See, I believe that we're in a spiritual warfare. Without constant communication and prayer time with God, we sort of lose that hedge of protection that only God can provide, even if it means a sense of safety. At tim...

Losing Mom was the worst fear of my life. Nobody will truly understand what you're going through, even if they've been through it many years ago, they're just at a different level of their loss and grief. Losing a mother is probably second to losing a child, as "they say." I'm not sure who "they" are, but I've heard of that and somehow believe it. But what if you don't have children, like myself? What if your child turned out to be your mother? "They" also say that as we grow older, we change roles with our parents. Our parents become our children, as we start to parent and care for our parents. It's an interesting turn of events, a sad, yet loving one. We return the love and care that we received all of our lives. Many have never experienced a loving relationship with their own parents, so I am sorry if this hits you right in the heart. I'm mainly speaking about my experiences right now, so that others may relate in some ...

Anticipatory Grief If you think back to a time when you were going through the roughest stage in your life, can you remember what pulled you through it? Do you remember how long you suffered for? If you were to have asked me a little over four months ago if I would be "OK" if my mom was going to pass away the next day, I wouldn't even entertain the thought. Even while my mother was in excruciating pain, I had hope that she would have gotten better. There was something telling me that this was the final stage. See, Mom kept a secret from me. This whole time I had thought she had stage two cancer. She was on stage four with no other options from her oncologist. She kept this secret to save me from killing myself. The month before she died, I got to take her to the shore, spend time with her, gave her a Mother's Day BBQ outside by the ocean with our family, and it was just magical. What happened next just spun my whole world around. I was having anticipatory grief. Mo...

Usually, I'm pretty hesitant to write about this type of stuff and I still do at times, but at the moment, I feel that it's very important to talk about this topic. I don't believe (or confirmed) that I'm a medium or some whacky 'ghost whisperer", but I have and still do communicate with people who have passed away, usually relatives and close friends from the past. This can be through dreams, symbolic signs or even short-lived appearances. I just don't talk about it because it seems a bit ~cray cray~. I can definitely confirm the cray cray part. Not to repeat myself from almost two years ago, but my mother and I knew the day and time that Dad would pass onto the other side. We were both outside on July 20th. Mom was smoking her cigarette sitting in the passenger seat of her parked car. Just to backtrack a bit, throughout this grueling ordeal, we watched Dad talk to people who weren't there. We also found out that certain family friends in our pas...

One day you're here and the next day, you're not. You wouldn't know it because you've never experienced it, only people you once knew or loved have. Do you think life plays out like a movie and we're all the actors trying to fulfill our part? What makes a 15 year old kid decide to commit suicide by running into the wrong lane, ending up killing two healthy men who each had their own family at home? What explains a kid getting killed playing baseball in the park all because the pitcher threw the ball right into the middle of his chest giving him cardiac arrest? What explains a mother's loss of her child for no apparent reason whatsoever while taking a nap in his crib? What explains woman losing her husband to a heart attack at the age of 35? Is life one big test? What explains cancer? What explains suffering? What can explain the horrible things that go on in this world? Perhaps scientifically and medically we can explain it all, but our spirits are still ago...

On many occasions, I've heard that adapting to change is a sign of maturity, or perhaps becoming "wiser" in some aspects. The types of changes, such as a new job or a new relationship can seem exciting and fun, and for the most part it is. Changes such as moving from one home to a lesser home, divorce or even a death in the family are seen as the most stressful events in our lives. Those are huge changes. We have to adapt, or at least try. We have to learn to ride the storm out grudgingly. I call those the "downgrade changes". I remember when Madelene and I had to rent an apartment downtown. We had no backyard, old twisted up plumbing and a furnace older than the hills that kept spilling out carbon monoxide to which the utility company had to fine my landlord. That wasn't fun because the landlord used to get pissed off at me for reporting it. Well, it was either report it or die in my bed. Although there were a lot of frustrations with that place, there ...